


Remembering

by TheSofterGentlerMe



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Memories, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, The Fright Zone (She-Ra)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27712553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSofterGentlerMe/pseuds/TheSofterGentlerMe
Summary: Catra and Adora have gone to visit Scorpia and Perfuma and their family at The Fright Zone. Late one night, Catra wakes up and can't get back to sleep and so she decides to go for a walk by herself.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), catradora - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	Remembering

**Author's Note:**

> Shall we?

It’d been years since the fall of Horde Prime, since the day that Catra found out that Adora felt the same way, since happiness finally seemed not only in reach but beautifully, brilliantly part of her life, and she couldn’t have been happier. Catra had friends and family, she had meaningful work, and she’d travelled across Etheria and around the universe. She’d faced her inner demons and turmoil, and found it wasn’t something you fought and defeated, that it was something you lay to rest, let go of, and then soothed quietly in the moments that they rumbled up. She could easily say that she loved her life and thinking of how many times she’d have happily let it end or even wished fervently that it would, that was a miraculous statement from her.

So she didn’t fully understand why she was wandering through the depths of the Fright Zone at that moment. She’d come with Adora to visit Scorpia and Perfuma and their family. Scorpia and Perfuma moved from place to place in their two kingdoms, living out of tents or under pavilions a large amount of the time as they did the work that was required of the two princesses in their respective kingdoms and part of that entailed spending a month or so at the Fright Zone. When Catra and Adora had decided to visit the two this time, Catra figured she’d be fine. She and Adora had been in the Fright Zone plenty of times before and while it would never be her favorite place, it didn’t have the sting it once did. 

However, that night, she’d woke up in the middle of the night after a nightmare. What had once happened frequently now were few and far between and she dealt with them fairly easily. This one though she couldn’t shake. She couldn’t even remember it but the uneasiness lingered and after fifteen minutes had passed and she couldn’t get back to sleep, she’d finally got up and got dressed, and left the room with Adora sleeping soundly. She missed Melog on these rare disquieted nights but the alien had left a few years before after a few surviving members of their species had been found. Catra and Adora had helped them all get settled on Krytis as they went about fixing the ruins of their home planet. They still visited but it was rare. 

Standing in the corridor, Catra had begun walking. She didn’t know who had made the decision for it, Scorpia or Perfuma, but the area the two and their family lived in when they were there was part of the old Horror Hall and so it didn’t hold much in the way of memories for Catra. She took a few moments to study the murals on the walls that Scorpia’s ancestors had put up and idly wondered if she should try and do an artistic study of it as she kept walking. She wasn’t really thinking of where to go and let her feet make the decision which way to go as she thought about her artwork and other little details of her life that brought her joy. 

Which is why she didn’t know exactly how she ended up in the old prison block. One moment she was thinking about a kinetic sculpture she wanted to try and build and the next she was walking out onto the ringed walkway. She stopped and looked around, the sculpture forgotten for the moment, as she suddenly remembered how bright it had been lit up back in the day. Now it only had a few lights working. It had felt dark and forbidding back then with lights burning bright and she found it interesting how now, years later with a lot of the surfaces covered by moss and rust and almost no light, that the place actually seemed less threatening. She poked her head into a few of the old cells as she wondered if the old force fields even worked anymore. She looked over the edge to the drop below and saw the lift to move between floors sitting busted at the bottom. 

Catra felt an odd sense of loss at that but couldn’t quite figure out why. When she looked back up, she saw the cell where Shadow Weaver had been kept before she’d escaped with Catra’s unknowing help. She frowned as the memory of the woman flowed through her mind. Even years later she could still hear her voice, insulting her, degrading her, and in the end, telling her she’d been proud of her against all other proof before she disappeared into a ball of fire, and it echoed in her head as she left the cell block. She leaned against a wall for a moment to catch her breath. She thought tears might come but her eyes just got a little damp as she took deep breaths and carefully put the thought of the sculpture into her mind in place of the other memories that might cause her to spiral downwards.

After a few minutes she was once again walking through the halls of the Fright Zone, again not really thinking about where she was going as she realized that she could use a certain kind of bearing in the main arm of her sculpture and it’d move so easy she wouldn’t have to worry about motive force and she’d be able to rely on even gentle breezes to move it about. She was grinning to herself about deducing the solution as she moved on to the next potential problem with her design when she suddenly realized she was standing next to a large melted hole. 

She glanced inside and recognized the outlines of Hordak’s old sanctum. It was mostly empty at that point as most of the equipment had been hauled out for various projects over the years and what was left was mostly stripped out husks. She idly wondered what Hordak and Entrapta were up to at that moment. Even though it was late into the night, she knew that the both of them were probably up and poking at something inadvisable since neither of them had any idea what the words normal sleep schedule meant.

Catra, her eyes wide in the dim light, stepped forward to run her hand down the melted steel. She shuddered as she remembered barely dodging the blast that had left the hole. 

_ Lucky on that one, _ a little voice said in her head. 

She gave a little grin. It had been. She’d never thought of herself as lucky but she had to admit she’d had moments of it. To not acknowledge that now would be ungracious to wherever that luck had come from. She reached down and picked up a little bolt that sat on the ground and walked on, tossing it into the air, spinning it different ways as she did and wondered about whether or not she should put mirrors into the installation piece or not. 

Onwards she went, little memories surfacing as she walked before going back under again, her ears twitching at little noises in the darkness but not giving much thought to it as she hummed a little tune and realized that if she used a honeycombed alloy for the main arms of the sculpture she’d be able to cut the weight dramatically and then frowned as she realized that it also might mean that the sculpture might take flight in a stiff breeze since it’d weigh so little. 

_ Maybe avoid the aerospace quality alloys on this one, _ the little voice said in her head. 

She nodded in agreement and then realized she was standing outside the old cadet barracks. She slide the door open and stepped in, the room so dark even her sharp eyes could barely see anything, and stood there listening and looking. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see or what she thought she’d hear but she stood there for several long silent minutes. The bunks, welded into place to the floor, were still there and she was surprised how little seemed to have changed. 

_ Not like it had been a highly decorated room to begin with _ , the little voice said. 

She gave a short huffing laugh and nodded to herself as she walked over to their old bunk and sat down. The old drawing on the wall was gone, a square hole in its place where her and Adora had cut it out with a cutting torch years before and brought it home, scratch marks and all. They’d hung it up in their bedroom but after one night they’d carefully packed it up and set it in the attic instead. It was a good memory for them but that memory was surrounded by memories of life as a child in the Horde and they had decided they didn’t want to remember that every morning. 

Catra held one hand against the flat metal of the bed and remembered those two scared cadets long ago and what they still had to go through to get to what they needed and wanted so badly and that they couldn’t even put a name to it yet. In the darkness, she imagined she could almost see her younger self curled at the foot of the bed and she wished she could tell her that it’d be alright, that she’d make it through, that the feelings she had were good and right and that Adora had them as well. That on top of all that she’d have friends and family who’d love her and that she’d have a life she’d love beyond any of her wildest dreams. That it wouldn’t just get better, it’d get amazing. 

Catra sighed and gave a sad smile as she gave the bed a little pat. As she stood up she told herself that the past was past. Her and Adora understood that well and they loved the memories that were worth loving, they dealt with the ones that brought pain, and they did their best to not spend too much time on either and to let them all rest in the past where they belonged as they worked to build the present they wanted, every day, step by step, new memory by new memory. 

Later, close to daybreak, Catra was sitting in her and Adora’s place high above the Fright Zone watching the stars and the drifting aurora of the Etherian night sky. She heard Adora climbing up and turned with a smile as Adora walked across the platform, her hair frizzy with sleep and pulled back into a tight ponytail. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Adora said as she sat down next to Catra. 

“Nope,” Catra said as lay back into Adora’s lap with a smile. 

“So whatcha been doing?” Adora said as she began to idly play with Catra’s fur fluffed out around her head.

“Just wandering around, thinking about a sculpture I want to try and make,” Catra said with a smile as she watched a moon slowly rise over the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic #40! I'm really surprised at that to be honest. It crept up on me. It seems like just the other day I was just breaking #20 and now here I am. Anyway, not much to say on this. I'd just really been having the introspective Catra moods lately and this came out of that. I hope you enjoy it!


End file.
